We did it, we went to Dave Coleman's studio in E. Nashville, holed up for a weekend and recorded some of the songs we've written. If you don't know Dave's work, check him out here... www.davecoleman.biz
Dave is one talented human being. He's a great singer, songwriter, an AMAZING guitar player. Also a great producer and engineer. He brought our tunes to life in a way we surely could not have done without him. I shared the whole track of "Living Blood" for your listening because of the instrumental break on it. Dave and I did a kind of call and response between fiddle and electric guitar, I'm really happy with how it turned out.
Percussion is not something Jeff and I have gotten to work with much, coming from the bluegrass/old time/folk background. Marshall Richardson was fantastic on all things drums.
Its been 6 years (!) since we've put out anything. We have been busy, though. We've been settling in to our new house, working on the property. Producing 2 radio broadcasts every week. I teach about 40 private music lessons a week. The songwriting was still happening underneath it all, however. Jeff has been prolific in particular, he's probably got enough material for another solo record. At the very least I hope he will work them up for live performance, why don't yall put some pressure on him about it for me, ok? ;)
Writing songs is the way Jeff and I both distill down what we are feeling. Its a pretty good coping mechanism. We do this whether it is marketable or not, we both have some songs that will never be performed in front of an audience, but they mean something to us, the experience knitting them into existence was the whole point, not whether anyone else would like them or benefit from them. The writing is the thing we do.
One of my favorite authors is Anne Lamott. She said “The great writers keep writing about the cold dark place within, the water under a frozen lake or the secluded, camouflaged hole The light they shine on this hole, this pit, helps us cut away or step around the brush and brambles; then we can dance around the rim of the abyss, holler into it, measure it, throw rocks in it, and still not fall in. It can no longer swallow us up. And we can get on with things.”
Now I'm not claiming that Jeff and I are any great writers, but sometimes in our piddling around with words and sounds we create something that might be of use to other people. Sometimes the songs are heavy. This new project is mostly like that. In the end we tend to turn sunny side up, hence the title track "Sweet Creation". I think its harder to write happy songs, I made a deal with myself a long time ago that I wasn't gonna waste peoples time anymore with sad songs that don't serve them, don't move them through anything, don't make them think, don't lift them up in the end. This project rocks harder and is darker than anything we've shared before. I hope it moves you through something. Much love, thank you for your time,
Sarah